This invention relates generally to computer printers and software thereof, and more particularly relates to a method of providing information about a print job to a user prior to its printing.
In the field of computer printing, a print job such as a word processing document consists of printer commands and data that are sent in a single batch from an input device such as a computer to a printing device such as a printer. Printer control commands contain explicit attributes of the print job such as a selected paper size, media type, and priority. Page description language (PDL) instructions contain the data as well as formatting commands such as line width and page separation. Software routines stored as firmware within the printer interpret the print job and print it.
Normally, a print job is immediately sent to the printer for printing once the job has been created. If the printer is busy with another job, the later print job is queued outside the printer and then printed once the printer is free.
In certain circumstances, it may be desirable to determine the nature of the print job before printing it. For example, if the print job is a massive document that will occupy the printer for some time, it may be best to print the job after normal work hours. Or, before printing the job, it may be desirable to determine the number of pages it contains, the time required for printing, the amount of toner required, to be sure that it can be printed. This information is contained in the attributes of the print job. With this information, a user can decide when the print job should be printed and whether there is adequate paper, toner, and other printing resources present in the printer before printing it.
A drawback of present printers is that they do not permit a user to view the attributes of a print job stored in the printer prior to deciding whether to print it. A further drawback of present printers is that they do not take the attributes into account in determining which of several print jobs in a queue to print. Presently, print jobs in a queue are printed on a first in, first out order, regardless of the size or other attributes of the jobs, unless the user has indicated that a later print job has higher priority than an earlier one.
The invention overcomes theses drawbacks through a method of providing print job attributes for later access and display before printing of the job. The method includes collecting print job attributes of a print job, storing the collected attributes and the print job; and accessing the collected attributes in response to a query of the stored print job. From the accessed attributes, a user can determine when and whether a print job should be executed. The invention also provides a method for a printer to place the print jobs in a queue based on their attributes.